The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1887-03-04
SOMETHING ABOUT RAILROADS

Editor Free Press:
Have we not fairly entered both in
National and State legI station upon an
era of class or special legislation, or per-
haps it may be styled by clamor, a period
when some particular class who can COM
mand the support ola few newspapers
and stump orators. conceive an anti
patty to some other class, and can raise
and maintain good sized clamor against
the objects of their prejudice or hatred
and appeal with a suitable degree of
noise and buster, regardless of reason
or justice and without submitting the
slightest plan for the relief they desire,
are too often more successful in obtain
ing legislation, good, bad or Indifferent,
than they ought to be. There seems to
be feeling among legislators that when
a clamor is raised by some class that
there must be something done to salts
fy the clamorers. The clamor must be
appeased by some sort of legislation,
which for the time being may still the
turbulent clamor of the turbulent Class,
who are generally unable to define spe-
officially what they want in the beginning
or what they have got in the end. The
Interstate Commerce Bill was passe d
in Difference 10 wide spread claimor
against railroad corporations, and now
both the legislators who passed, and the
clamorers in whose interest it was pas
sed, are both anxious for decision of
the Supreme Court of the United States
10 determine the real meaning of the
law. Yet this is but q fair specimen of
the anti-railroad legislation of the times,
in State as in National legislation. Per-
haps in no State is there more clamo
against corporations, particularly rail-
road corporations, than in Minnesota,
or where it is more unpopular for man
to suggest that if railroad corporations
have no souls to down, they may pos
sibly have acquired some vested rights
under the constitution and laws that are
worthy of respect from white men. In
no other State has the demagogue ele-
ment Of all parties been more ready to
take advantage of whatever of the popu-
lar clamor of that disgruntled element
that might properly be termed ''consti-
tutional GROWERS" whose real or imag-
mary grievances are never to rest IN
silence, or like the rolling snow ball
diminish in size with the rolling, and it
would be still more offensive to these
unreasonable clamorers and their dema-
gogue hackers to say what is true in the
matter, that despite all the real or
imaginary grievances they claim to have
endured from these corporations. No
State in the Northwest has been more
prosperous than the State of Minnesota
for the past ten years, and no other State
has been more benefited by these same
railroad corporations than Minnesota,
and in no State have the people be en-
railroads, more ready to give lands, vote
loans and bonuses to aid in their con-
struction, and in no State have they
been more conducive to the develop
ment and settlement of the country than
In our own State of Minnesota. But with
all these advantages and benefits appar
ent, and might say known to every in
telligent citizen of the State, certainly
those OF us who have witnessed its I'M
paralelled growth and prosperity during
the past quarter of a century, it is doubt
full if there is another State in the North
west where the clamor against the rail-
roads is more violent than in this State.
Every demagogue swells the chorus, be-
cause he thinks this the sure path to
political emoluments. The people who
follow them seem TO forget their past
anxiety TO secure them the advantages
they have afforded the country and its
rapid development, they forget tina
without the railroads the great manu-
featuring interests of the State coull not
have been built up, and probably not
one-half the State settled, and raise the
clamor for legislation hostile 10 the cor
porations they themselves encouraged
TO invest their capital in their midst. 1t
is no matter TO them that as business has
increased and competing lines establish
ed, the rates of freight have steadily de-
creased till they are now only about 80
per cent of what they we're seven years
ago. But they are not satisfied with
this. They do not stop to consider that
railroads are profitable property, that 10
per cent per annum is low estimate of
the wear and tear Of any busy railroad.
No consideration is given to the advant-
ages the State has in the past or may in
the future derive from the railroads,
they demand that all other important
Legislation must be subordinate to legis-